Geneseo’s current parking lot situation is insufficient for all its commuting students. As it stands, 45 percent of Geneseo students live off-campus. It can be assumed that many of these students commute to campus and require parking in reasonable proximity to their classes. Yet, there are only three commuter parking lots, I, S and T.
This is frustrating for commuting students because while they drive in circles in search of a free parking spot, there are often a multitude of free parking spots in the faculty/staff and reserved lots. In fact, even though the student-faculty ratio is 18:1, there are seven faculty/staff parking lots compared to 11 resident and commuter student parking lots.
Due to insufficient parking spots, Geneseo students have no choice but to park illegally in order to make it to class on time. This results in parking tickets, which range from $15 to $50, though parking violations may vary in severity. Fines are doubled for not paying the ticket within 10 days and there is an additional $10 fee for having 5 unpaid tickets. This results in low income students who already have trouble paying the fees and buying parking passes being disproportionately affected.
Section five of Geneseo’s Traffic and Parking Regulations states, “Upon receipt of ten (10) tickets, paid or unpaid, for campus parking violations during a twelve (12) month period, parking privileges may be revoked for the remainder of the academic year. Vehicles may be towed.” Towing a student’s car because they forgot to pay the meter or had to park in an empty faculty lot to make it to their exam seems unjust, especially when these students often have bought parking passes for the year already.
Geneseo is also unclear about what they do with the money accumulated through parking tickets. The revenue from parking tickets is likely high enough to be applied toward improving the parking situations, yet changes have not been made.
Additionally, failure to pay tickets in a timely manner may result in holds on student accounts. A minor parking violation should not have the power to hinder someone’s education.
This is especially unfair since Geneseo parking violations are unclear and many students do not know about them unless they do their research on the Geneseo website, which can be time consuming. A better alternative would be for Geneseo to broadcast their regulations in a clear manner so that students are fully aware of their rights and limitations.